


back to shore

by therestlessbrook



Series: kastle prompts [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boats and Ships, F/M, Kidnapping, Ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22882489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestlessbrook/pseuds/therestlessbrook
Summary: We’re gonna get out of this, Karen.A flash of worried dark eyes meet hers as they drag him away. They threatened to hurt her when he wouldn’t come quietly, and it was only the gun at her temple that kept the Punisher still enough to put handcuffs on him. Karen hates that she’s the reason he’s here—she might as well have put that gun to his heart and pulled the trigger.The problem with caring is that it ties a person’s hands as much as these bonds.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Series: kastle prompts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1337734
Comments: 16
Kudos: 171





	back to shore

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday fic for [Superrpowerlesshuman](https://superrpowerlesshuman.tumblr.com)! I hope you enjoy it.

They drag Frank to the side of the boat first.

He’s cuffed with his hands behind his back. There are no weights, because it turns out that when a bunch of mobsters decide to make the Punisher and his reporter friend vanish, taking them out into the Atlantic seems to be more than enough.

Karen thinks they’re probably right.

Frank’s making furious noises; they gagged him about an hour ago, after he head butted and then bit a man. The spray of blood left an interesting pattern along the wall, and Karen found herself watching it as they were taken farther and farther out to sea.

_We’re gonna get out of this, Karen._

A flash of worried dark eyes meet hers as they drag him away. They threatened to hurt her when he wouldn’t come quietly, and it was only the gun at her temple that kept the Punisher still enough to put handcuffs on him. Karen hates that she’s the reason he’s here—she might as well have put that gun to his heart and pulled the trigger.

The problem with caring is that it ties a person’s hands as much as these bonds.

She cared about Frank, so she reached out after the hotel. She put the roses in the window again, waited for him to return to her.

He did return—because he cared, too. He met her in parks, holding two coffee cups with unbruised knuckles. He wore gray hoodies and brown jackets—anything but black. The Punisher wore black, and the Punisher was still at large. But Frank Castle grew a short beard and went to group therapy and worked in construction and met Karen twice a week for talk and caffeine. This thing between them was tenuous, but it was there—even if neither had given a name to it yet.

She kissed him on the cheek when she would say ‘goodbye.’ Every time his head tilted a little closer, as if he wanted to return the kiss but hadn’t yet mustered up the courage.

She thought there’d be time.

But then the mobsters took her from a parking lot—a taser to the back and a bag around her head—and then used her to lure Frank in.

“Frank,” she says, her voice soft. But he seems to hear; his gaze never wavers as one of the mobsters yanks him to the edge of the boat. The mobster has a gun to his back, ready to pull the trigger. They’re going to shoot him, to leave his body floating out on the waves. They’ll do the same to her.

He might be able to fight them, if he weren’t tethered—not by those cuffs, but by her. If he were here alone, he could have done what the Punisher has always done: killed. Survived impossible odds. Risen from yet another grave.

She thinks he won’t rise from this one. Because this isn’t the Punisher, not really. This is still Frank, and he’s looking at her like she’s all he can see.

She can’t let this happen.

So she throws her whole weight against the man holding her. He’s startled, reaching for her, but she doesn’t attack.

They need a hostage—so she takes that away.

She steps over the side of the boat willingly.

There’s a moment of weightlessness, her stomach floating somewhere behind her ribs—then she slams into the cold water of the Atlantic. It steals all the breath from her lungs, has her muscles cramping in mere moments. Her body is pulling in on itself, shock settling between her bones. She has to do something or she’ll just sink. Her own hands are unbound, because the mobsters didn’t deem her a threat. She cups the water, paddling upward. Her head breaks the surface, and she blinks the world into focus. The side of the boat is only an arm’s length away, and she glances upward, water dripping down her face.

A mobster is looking down at her. The black barrel of a gun is aimed and she sees his finger twitch.

She throws herself back into the water, but she still hears the crack of the shot.

The bullets don’t hit her—they hit the water and float away like tiny, golden flecks of sunlight. Karen waits, holding her breath until her lungs ache. When she can’t stand it any longer, she swims back up and takes on hasty gulp of air.

It’s a good thing she grew up north, where kids dared one another to jump into half-frozen lakes. The chill has dulled to a warm, almost pleasant numbness in her fingers and toes. There’s evidence of a fight—gunfire and screaming and smoke on the air. Karen reaches for the side of the boat, touches one of the algae-slick plastic panels. She’s going to have to climb up at some point, before hypothermia sets in. Her fingertips are pale.

Or rather, before it gets too bad.

A swell hits the boat and passes right over Karen’s head. She’s driven back into the stillness and silence of the ocean, and she’s struck by the peace of it. She’s always liked swimming, but there hasn’t been time for it since she came to New York.

She bobs above water again, gasping for air. She should join a gym, if she survives this. Find a nice one with a pool. Or maybe she’ll just take a day trip to a river clean enough to swim in. She can invite Frank, make a day of it—maybe she’ll bring some food and a deck of cards, and—

A body slams into the water beside her. She draws in a sharp breath, heart hammering in fear. The man’s hair is dark, and for a moment she thinks it has to be him—that all of this was for nothing, that Frank—

It’s not Frank. This man has no beard and blue eyes, and he’s sinking beneath the ocean, a bullethole through his head. The ocean takes her due, and the body slides beneath the waves.

Karen grips the side of the boat harder, pressing her forehead to it. She’s utterly numb, barely able to breathe. It takes less than fifteen minutes for a person to reach unconsciousness in cold water, and she has no idea how much time has passed. Five minutes? Eight? Ten? Adrenaline has driven all sense of time from her.

She needs to find a way up. It hurts to unclench her fingers, to swim alongside the boat. There should be a ladder or stairs.

There hasn’t been gunfire in a few moments. Maybe it’s over. Maybe—

“Karen!”

There’s that voice, so familiar and welcome it sends a shiver of pure relief through her. He’s yelling, the sound coming from the direction of where she fell.

Footsteps clatter overhead. She looks up, and there he is—his face spattered with crimson and his lip swollen. But he’s alive.

“Hold on,” he says hoarsely, and then he vanishes. A moment later, he’s back, tying a rope into what looks like an elaborate slip-knot. He drops it over the edge. “Put it under your arms, okay?”

It takes her a few tries; her fingers are stiff and numb. But then the rope is beneath her armpits, and Frank grunts, hauling upward.

The moment Karen leaves the water, she yearns to return to it. The water felt warmer than the air—the cold wind slices into her bare skin and it hurts more than she can remember anything hurting in a long time. She is breathing hard, clutching at the rope. That hurts, too. The pressure squeezes and she’s banging her hip against the side of the boat, being dragged up and out of the ocean.

Then his hands are on her, trying to find purchase on the rope and her sodden clothing. His fingers are molten against her, and she gasps when he all but drags her up and over the edge. Her legs won’t hold her when she hits the deck.

Everything hurts. From the warmth of Frank’s hands as they look her over to the hard clack of her teeth as she shivers so violently she bites her own tongue. Frank is muttering a quiet stream of obscenities that she knows aren’t directed at her—but rather, at the universe itself. And probably himself. When he’s sure she hasn’t been shot, he hooks an arm beneath her legs and hauls her below deck. There’s a small room where they were kept—just a closet. And then there’s the rest of the boat: two small cots, what looks like a camper’s stove, some coolers, and storage.

Her fingers feel swollen and clumsy but she manages to unbutton her blouse as he sets her gently on the floor, then goes to the storage container. Her clothes have to come off, Karen knows that. Growing up north, she knows all of the signs of hypothermia and how easily the cold can slip into a body. She has to get warm and dry or else her body temperature will continue to fall—and they’re nowhere near a hospital.

Frank returns with a few towels. They’re worn and scratchy, abrading her skin as he wipes the water from her throat and face, bundling her loose hair back. Her blouse comes free but she can’t manage her skirt. Frank helps with that—with no sign of embarrassment or hesitation. He shucks down the skirt, unclips her bra. She manages her panties herself, and then a scratchy woolen blanket is wrapped around her. When she’s no longer dripping, she manages to half-stagger into one of the bunks.

The bunk beneath her is hard, but the blankets are dry. Frank is fumbling with his boots and jacket, and then he slides in next to her, pulling her close. He’s so warm that every place he touches burns and itches, but she doesn’t pull away. He takes her hands pressing them between both his palms. Finally, she tilts her had back and meets his eyes.

She’s naked in a bunk with Frank Castle and he’s looking at her like he’s half-furious and half-terrified.

“Don’t you—” He begins to say, but falters. He tries again. “Never—” The sentence cuts off, because he seems to understand the words are useless.

She would do it again. She’d throw herself into a freezing ocean again and again if meant he would live. She has run toward a live bomb, placed a gun beneath her own chin, stood beside a burning dock, and walked willingly into a dark forest with blood streaming down her head—all because she understands him. She wants him to be okay, because he’s part of her.

“Karen,” he says, as if seeing the truth of it in her face.

“You weren’t going to fight back as long as a hostage was in play,” she says. “As long as there was a gun to my head, would you have risked it?”

His jaw clenches—and she knows the answer.

“And that’s why I did it,” she tells him quietly.

Something flashes through his dark eyes—a moment of clarity. Then he nods. His hands are holding hers, trying to warm them. It hurts, the blood warming beneath her skin. Before she can even register it, Frank kisses one of her knuckles. It feels like a brand—the heat of his mouth and lips and breath—and then it’s gone.

She closes her eyes and tries to relax into the warmth. It isn’t pleasant, coming back from that kind of cold. Her muscles cramp and her skin itches and she’s nauseated with the cold. But finally, the chill recedes and she slips into a state of half-sleep. She’s aware when Frank leaves the bunk because his mouth brushes her forehead. He slips from th bed silently. A few minutes after, the boat’s engine kicks up.

He’s taking them back to shore.


End file.
